


Secrets

by Goodnightsammy



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Leia walks in on Ben and Rey, Post TLJ, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Last Jedi - Freeform, enemies to lovers sort of?, tlj - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodnightsammy/pseuds/Goodnightsammy
Summary: After Crait, Rey begins to forgive Ben for turning back toward the dark side on the Supremacy.This was based off of an anon ask on Tumblr that was looking for fics where Leia walks in on Ben and Rey. This was born.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 126





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> It is short and isn't much, but I thought this moment was too cute to not do.

It happened slowly—after Crait. After the hurt and the anger of rejection and betrayal faded into old wounds, something softer, something quiet took its place. Rey stopped ignoring Ben when she flashed in the corner of her vision. She stopped trying to will his presence away. She let the two of them orbit around each other in a silent sort of acknowledgement, and finally, she started to feel whole again. She had lost something, she knew, when he had turned back toward the dark. She could feel it in the way her bones seemed to feel hollow, how her lungs didn’t seem to fill up her chest as completely as before. Rey was less without him. A part of her, a small, childish part of herself that still lived in the Jakku of her memory, hoped that he was less without her, too.

He spoke to her for the first time some time later, and at first Rey hadn’t realized he was addressing her. She became used to him murmuring at the shadows across from him—she had assumed he was in another meeting, talking to another admiral or ordering a stormtrooper off somewhere. She told herself it wasn’t wrong that she didn’t report his conversations to the Resistance, that it would be too much trouble to explain how she got the intelligence anyways. Instead, his voice had become a constant in the back of her mind, so no, she hadn’t noticed.

“It’s my birthday,” Ben mumbled, and she wasn’t even turned toward him as he spoke. He cleared his throat and Rey turned, meeting his eyes. It was only then, his dark gaze on her, that she realized he had been speaking to her.

“Happy birthday?” Rey offered tentatively, not really sure what he wanted from the exchange.

“No uh,” he began, but whatever thought he was going to give fell away and his shoulders slumped slightly, “thanks.”

Rey would turn that moment over in her mind for many nights after, trying to figure out what he could have meant to say. But something, one single thought, stuck out the most on nights where she stared up through the dark in her bunk at the resistance base. It was Ben Solo’s birthday—Ben’s, not Kylo Ren’s. She allowed herself to hope after that.

Sometimes, she would walk past him in the hall. His appearance wasn’t hard to miss, all broad shoulders and sharp lines, even when it wasn’t accompanied by the tell-tale vacuum of sound. Sometimes, she would lean a little closer than necessary as she walked past, close enough to brush against his shoulder, or barely graze the back of his hand with her own. Sometimes, she would hear his voice catch in his throat.

Eventually, Rey let her curiosity get the best of her. She was training in the woods outside of the Resistance base when the air seemed to escape her. He turned to look at her, and Rey let the question tumble out of her before she could decide otherwise, “what were you going to say, that day?”

Ben furrowed his brow, for a moment unsure of what she was referring to. When realization dawned on his face, he shifted his weight from one foot to the next and crossed his hands behind his back, “nothing, not really.”

“You’re not one to lie,” Rey challenged, suddenly braver at the sight of his nerves.

“No,” he sighed, and when he ducked his head to drop his gaze, his dark hair fell across his face, “I suppose I’m not.”

“You were going to say something,” she pressed again, “what was it?”

“You act as if it is keeping you awake at night,” he said. After a beat when Rey didn’t answer, he studied her for a moment, “oh. Oh, it is.” There was no danger in the edge of his voice, instead it sounded closer to regret. As if, after all that had happened, it was this small thing he did that had truly failed her.

Rey gave him a small nod in confirmation.

“I just—no one here really cares about things like that. I just—I thought you might,” he stumbled. Rey didn’t know her own birthday, not really, but she knows what the day implies—family, belonging, a _past—_ something he himself had told her to let die—and she understood why he would want her to know, what he was trying to say in too many words. _I’m sorry._ Even that was something she still wasn’t sure how to maneuver around, however, so Rey kept the thought of it like a marble in her chest. She thought, for a moment, she felt a little fuller.

“Maybe next time I’ll get you something,” she told him instead, and the way his lips turned almost reminded her of a smile.

It became easier, after that, to separate their quiet moments from the war ranging on. It became easier to talk with him in low whispers when no one was around. It became easier to let him touch her, to feel her—each time another secret she would keep until she was bursting with the truth of everything they were. It was a secret she kept from her friends—from his own mother. If it became harder to meet Leia’s eyes, Rey wouldn’t admit it.

Some nights, Rey would wake tucked up against his chest, and she wouldn’t pull away when his arms tightened around her. Some mornings, Rey would wake still tangled in his black sheets, the ghost of his form an imprint in her mattress. As the war surrounded her, Rey tried to convince herself that she deserved _something_ , and why couldn’t it be this?

It almost came tumbling down around Rey one morning she hadn’t be scheduled to train—or at least she thought. When Leia came bursting into her bunk in the middle of some rant about how she “didn’t have time to wake up Padawans halfway to midday,” her voice died in her throat when she saw the scene before her: Her son wrapped around Rey, half asleep as his large fingers carded through her loose hair.

“Oh,” Leia breathed, and she let herself stand there for a moment. It had been so long since she had last seen her son. So, so long. Eventually, Rey stirred, and Ben faded from view. Rey could still feel his fingers on her skin when she turned to see Leia standing in the doorway. But if Leia had seen anything that morning, she didn’t mention it. If the General smiled more after that moment, well, that was _Leia’s_ secret to keep.


End file.
